Another true Jazz legend lost today. Pianist/composer Dave Brubek left us at the age of 91. He was one of the architects of progressive Jazz movement and released one of the great Jazz albums of all time, TIME OUT, which featured the classic “Take Five.”
Rest easy, Dave~
For my friends who are living with it…
For the souls we have lost forever because of it…
Here’s to all your brave and dauntless hearts…
In the most brilliant of days and through the darkest hours…we fight with you…and will continue to fight with you until this scourge – and the blinding heat of hate – is banished, evermore…
We will never forget.
Another legend, gone, but at 91, he lived a full, sumptuous life. And the list of songs he wrote the lyrics for (with his writing partner, the great Burt Bacharach), is beyond staggering: “A House Is Not A Home,” “One Less Bell To Answer,” “The Look Of Love,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Always Something There to Remind Me,” “Do You Know The Way To San Jose?” “”Walk On By,” “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “This Guy’s In Love With You” – I could go on and on and on and on. He’ll always be timeless, alive in his music. R.I.P. Hal David~
Sad to hear the passing of Pop and Soul singer Dobie Gray. His “Drift Away” is one the seminal songs of the 1970s. Read his obituary here. Here’s a re-post of a blog I wrote last year about his classic jam – one of my favorite songs of all time.
Rest in peace, Dobie. I want you to know I believe in your song…all of them.
Dobie Gray’s version of “Drift Away” is, justifiably, the most famous and, by far, the most brilliant reading of the Mentor Williams-penned (that would be Paul Williams’ brother) 70s staple. Originally released on John Henry Kurtz’ 1972 REUNION album, the indelible classic always takes me away…to that far away place I used to reside – within the deepest caverns of my soul. At times the song makes me weep, as I miss the halcyon days of my youth and the kinder world we thrived in. When any ills of the world would be swept away when reaching for your LP of your favorite music was all that was needed to, well, drift away.
The song was covered hundreds of times these past 40 years, most famously and recently in a passionless 2003 recording by Uncle Kracker. Credited as Uncle Kracker featuring Dobie Gray, the track meandered along in karaoke sterility until finally Gray’s soul chimed in mid-point and he infused it with a thrilling tremble. When the track reached #9 on Billboard’s Top 100, Gray broke the record for the biggest gap between top US top 10 appearances (it had been 30 years between both). The Kracker version had a far more major impact on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary charts – it holds the record as the longest #1 on that chart, having reigned for 28 weeks in 2003-04. No doubt thanks to Gray.
There was a story told by Kracker that the song was initially written for Elvis, but Presley turned it down once he heard Gray’s version of it. Gray was a demo singer in Memphis at the time. Talk about decree.
Gray’s had a decades-long career. While never matching the mega-success of “Drift Away” (Uncle Kracker notwithstanding), he’ s recorded dozens of albums. HERE is his Wikipedia page – spelunk and learn.
And here is “Drift Away”…
Amy Winehouse died this past week and the real grief is in the knowledge that no one was surprised at all. As of this writing the cause of death was still undetermined, but lest we fool ourselves, is there really any wonder?
Winehouse – whose breakthrough (2006’s BACK TO BLACK) cemented the route for other Brit-soul contemporaries like Duffy and Adele to conquer intercontinental shores – didn’t merely “struggle” with addiction – she flaunted and reveled in it. She was a talented singer/songwriter who lived a stupid, foolish life and now she’s another stupid, foolish dead Rock star. She squandered her intrinsic gifts for years for pure hedonism, permeating her whole existence in drug-induced stupors, coked-up public performances, heroin-induced soporifics and a lifestyle that prodigiously overshadowed her musicality. Her brief skimps at rehab only solidified her lack of seriousness of getting any help. And because of that profligacy, she was the inadvertent queen of the tabloids, those subhuman succubi who lick their scabbed lips in deviant, debased glee at every fucked-up antic that befall any caliber celebrity. (Though we can scorn the tabloids for their evil, we can only blame ourselves for their successes.)
I’ll not belittle addiction. I understand the colossal power of control it has over the core of the mind and body and soul. And I also know that there are enablers and sycophants who are willing participants in someone’s destructive behavior (Winehouse associated with plenty, and even married one). But at what point does one’s self – the captain of that soul – take responsibility for the sinking ship? Millions battle addiction. Millions have beaten addiction. Millions will continue to do both.
Addiction is often touted as a disease, and perhaps it is – I can’t claim to be erudite in the science of medicine. And if it is indeed a disease, it’s the only one that is curable by the afflicted. Those who cannot – or who do not – overcome this malady are not wholly to blame, of course, but do bear the crux of responsibility. Those who cannot are merely prisoners of the encumbrance of the albatross. Those who continue on their suicidal sojourn (which is what addiction is) understand the ultimate price payable. And they accept it. Those who do not wish to accept the obvious sober up, as complex and excruciating as the process is. If it’s too late, then it’s merely another sad cautionary tale. And a cliché.
Or, in Winehouse’s case (or Jim Morrison’s case, or Janis Joplin’s case or Jimi Hendrix’s or Judy Garland’s, or John Bohnam’s, or Billie Holiday’s or any other icon who played one final game of Russian Roulette that cost them their lives) a dead Rock N Roll cliché. By joining a list of dead musicians, she has solidified her place in the annals of music history (that the tragedy of Winehouse is greater than her genius is foretelling – with a mediocre-at-best debut and a strong follow-up, many – postmortem, of course – have histrionically already declared BACK TO BLACK a classic).
On a friend’s website earlier this week, I drew ire when discussing my innate beliefs about Winehouse and addiction. One response I received after voicing these sentiments read:
“It’s disrespectful, whether you know Amy Winehouse or not, to simply pass her off at the end of her life as a “stupid, foolish dead RnR cliche”. I hope that you don’t have the misfortune of someone saying these horrible things about one of your loved ones one day.
My reply was simple and true: if someone in my family or one of my friends dies as a result of addiction, I would say exactly what I said about Winehouse. If accusations of cold-heartedness are hurled my way, so be it. If that mendacity makes you feel better, I’m glad for you. Only, it’s not. It’s the polar opposite. It’s a truism, and anger often deflects truth.
My empathy is minuscule for life-wasters. My sympathies are limited to the devastation of the loved ones and family members and friends that addicts inconsiderately leave behind.
This week, they buried the woman who possessed such promise but cared so little in nurturing it. Family and friends gathered in somber reflection, serene sadness and devout mourning.
Another daughter. Another sister. Another friend. Another artist. Suicide by selfishness. Another addict.
“I looked over at C and it looked like his head reached into the clouds. And I felt like a mere mortal scurrying upon the earth, you know. But he always lifted me up. Way, way, way up. Together we told a story of the possibilities of friendship, a story older than the ones that I was writing and a story I could never have told without him at my side.” ~ Bruce Springsteen pays tribute to Clarence during 1999 Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame speech
Here’s his obit from ROLLING STONE
Their names might not have been of the household kind, but lest you foolhardily believe otherwise, it’s been a terrible few weeks for music lovers, as we lost three gifted ladies of varying genres.
I first heard about Marianne Joan Elliott-Said AKA Poly Styrene when I started working at Greenwich Village’s long gone, but no-less legendary Tower Records in the 1980s. The sprawling “record store” was, atmospherically, a fantastic place to work – where variations of society’s children gathered, where the punks mingled with the straight-edged mixed with the preppy juxtaposed with the hip-hoppers gelled with the jazz purists jumbled with the blues men all jumbled, of course, with the rock and rollers. As a Brooklyn boy, I’ve traveled so often to Tower for any and all my musical needs for years that I jumped at the chance to work there when I got in through a trick I picked up. It was a corporate entity, sure, but with a punk rock aesthetic.
Alan (not that aforementioned trick, BTW) was a coworker who introduced me to a lot of that ‘punk rock aesthetic’ that I wasn’t totally familiar with. One of those artists was X-Ray Spex. Styrene was the lead singer of this brash, messy, discombobulated English Punk band that made beautiful noise, and whose“Oh Bondage! Up Yours!”is seminal punk rock. Their classic punk album, Germ Free Adolescents was released on CD while I worked at Tower, and I fell in love with their awesome cacophony.
Sadly – or ironically, if you will – Styrene’s solo album, GENERATION INDIGO, was released a day after her death (April 25th), and nearly three decades after her only other solo debut TRANSLUCENCE.
Read Robert Christgau’s Poly obit from NPR HERE. And here is a great live performance of “Oh Bondage…”, taken from the 1977 documentary PUNK IN LONDON
The ‘high lonesome’ sound rarely sounded so simultaneously earthly and ethereal than when sung by bluegrass pioneer Hazel Dickens, who passed away on April 21st. I’ve not been overtly familiar with Dickens full catalogue, but a few years ago, I actually did some further research of her music after seeing the documentary HARLAN COUNTY, USA, in which she appeared and contributed a few songs to the soundtrack (she also appeared in John Sayles’ MATEWAN). The two albums I own (besides that soundtrack) are a great 1990s Rounder compilation A FEW OLD MEMORIES, and the great duet album with Alice Gerrard called, appropriately enough, HAZEL AND ALICE (they actually recorded a few collaborative albums in the 1970s which have since been issued on CD and that I really must own).
Here’s a 2-part PBS OUTLOOK (from West Virginia) on Hazel, followed by a great duet with Gerrard from HAZEL AND ALICE called “The Sweetest Gift, A Mother’s Smile (Coats)”
As a pre-teen gay boy, I was entrenched in my own world. At 10 or 11 years old, I had one of those little portable transistor radios (the ones with the plastic strap to hang from your wrist or bicycle bars) that I slept with under my pillow, where I can escape a confused, but exciting, new realization. Even at that young age, I would always listen to talk radio or all news stations (as I rarely could sleep to music). But one evening, for whatever reason I can’t even fathom to remember (perhaps musical divine intervention?), I listened to WABC (AM radio ruled in the 1970s) while in my bed on the floor, and “Poetry Man” came wafting through my dreamscape in the middle of the night. I was immediately transfixed at the sound of this woman’s voice which had awoken me from my deep slumber…and it’s otherworldly hold on me. Both the PHOEBE SNOW album and “Poetry Man” are entities that have haunted me since, by a singer, woman and mother I’ve grown to admire even more as the years progressed (including a deeper appreciation for her as a comedic entity with her many appearances in the 1980s and 1990s on Howard Stern’s radio show. Such a good friend – and fan – was Stern that he asked Snow to sing at his wedding to his wife, Beth, in 2008.)
Snow sorta “quit” music only a few years following her immediate success after the birth of her daughter, Valerie (who was born in 1975 severely brain damaged) knowing a full-fledged career as pop star would mean abandoning a child with hardcore special needs. She continued to make albums, but since Snow refused to institutionalize her daughter and cared for Valerie at home, she became one of the most sought after commercial jingle singers, which paid well, and helped the financial woes that come when caring for a handicapped youngster, and allowed her never to be away from her precious child. Valerie passed away in March of 2007 at the age of 31.
Back in the late 1990s, I worked the weekend overnight reception desk of the now-defunct Sony Music Studios on West 54th st. I was listening to Phoebe Snow’s self-titled 1974 debut CD when I glanced down at the schedule for the weekend and saw that she had a session that evening (I believe it was a mastering session). I was thrilled to finally be able to tell her, however succinctly, what her music and voice has meant to me now, and as that scared 10 year old gay boy from Brooklyn. She was honored and moved at my story, and we spoke briefly every time she came into the studio. I’m not one of those silly fans who ask for autographs, but now – over a decade later – I wish I had her sign the CD that I was listening to. Snow passed away on April 26th. (You can read her obituary HERE)
R.I.P Phoebe…your miraculous voice will be forever missed.
Here’s Phoebe singing Mahalia Jackson’s “Moving Up A Little Higher” during a televised Earth Day Weekend back in April of 1990…
It was imminent, forthcoming really (too often, her near death experiences and hospital visits were the fodder for tabloid headlines and sickening TMZ-style sleazeball journalism all but proclaiming her demise) but it’s still a sad day in Hollywood and the world of cinema.
I can say nothing that a thousand far superior writers can, have and will about Dame Elizabeth – who has left us today at the age of 79. She was one of the last of the great Hollywood icons, a true “movie star”, something that’s been lacking in the movies these last few decades. She certainly was and remains a revered actress (the too-often tossed around lapel “legend” actually applies to her), winning two Oscars for Best Actress (still an elite club) for 1960s BUTTERFIELD 8 and 1966s WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF.
She was also a great and peerless humanitarian….
After helping initiate amfAR, in 1991 Taylor founded the The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF), which has raised countless millions of dollars for research. Her impetus was due to the death of her longtime friend, Rock Hudson, who succumbed to the disease in 1985. Her work for equality and understanding during the tumultuous beginnings of AIDS was profoundly tireless. Besides her two aforementioned Oscar wins and three other nominees (for 1957s RAINTREE COUNTY, 1958s CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, 1959s SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER) she was awarded the Jean Herscholt Humanitarian Academy Award in 1992 for her prodigious charitable work. It wasn’t enough to merely raise funds – she embraced her role fearlessly, understanding that while money was an absolute necessity, education and knowledge were the missing ingredients, and knowing it takes power to educate the uneducated mass.
Also one of the most beautiful women the movies (and world, really) has ever seen, Taylor’s natural, gorgeous violet eyes stunned the world into submission upon first arrival, and her magnificent beauty captivated fans for decades. They grew with Taylor, and every generation has succumbed to her charms and iconicity.
Rest In Peace, Dame Elizabeth. Will there ever be another like you?
My New Boyfriend 